Comma tips.

Today I would like to once again address the pressing issue of commas in the English language. 

And no, I'm not going to take up once more the battle of the serial comma (also known as the Oxford comma) -- that is, the comma before the last item in a series. (As in the sentence I bought bananas, apples, and oranges.) There are those who believe the serial comma should be used in such sentences, and there are those who are wrong. I'm not debating the wrong people at this time. 

No, in this case I have a couple of tips for comma use that will make your writing sing! Or, if not sing, at least look neater, which will still put you ahead of the game. 

1) Use commas with independent clauses.

Bob got out his motorcycle, and Jan got out her AK-47.

A comma usually proceeds the conjunction (sing it with me: and, but, and or, get you pretty far! And also yet, while, so, etc.) when there are independent clauses. What does this mean without the grammar blah blah blah? When you see a sentence with multiple subjects and their verbs, and you have a boxcar from Conjunction Junction, break out your comma. 

Failure to do so is the number-one cause of run-on sentences, according to a statistic I just made up. It makes you sound unschooled, or someone like Big Bill Faulkner or Winston Groom or T. R. Pearson pretending to be unschooled.

Then Jolie and me went to the bait shop and I bought bait and she said what's that for and I said lunch and she didn't think it was funny.

Of course that should be: Then Jolie and me went to the bait shop, and I bought bait, and she said what's that for, and I said lunch, and she didn't think it was funny. Although if you were writing a business letter like this, you would need to make plenty more changes. 

One thing that can alert you is the change of point-of-view. In the top example we have Bob and Jan doing different things, with individual verbs and objects. When it's just one subject with that conjunction, you won't need the comma. 

Bob got out his motorcycle and gunned the engine.

2) How to tell when to use a comma for a coordinate adjectives. 

Here are some simple nouns with multiple adjectives. Can you tell why some have commas and some don't?

lovely cold water

green, hazy morning

sharp, shiny blade

hard, cold truth

blue wooden basket

The simple answer is that in the first and last examples, the first adjective modifies the noun and the adjective before the noun. It is because the water is cold that it is lovely; it is the wood of the basket that is painted blue. A hazy morning is not necessarily green, a blade not always shiny, and the truth not always cold. Think of "cold water" and "wooden basket" as being the name of the object.  

But Fred, you say, this is very subtle. If only there were an easy way to tell when to use the comma and when not to use the comma!  

And there is! When looking at multiple adjectives before a noun, ask yourself, Self! Would the phrase work as well if I used and between the adjectives? If so, use the and or use the comma. Sharp and shiny blade is the same as sharp, shiny blade. Lovely and cold water is not the same as Lovely cold water because in the first instance, the loveliness is not connected to the refreshingly chill of the water. Maybe the water just looks nice. But hard and cold truth is fine, because that truth is both hard and cold. 

The Chicago Manual of Style gives less subtle examples as: 

He has rejected traditional religious affiliations.

You can see that traditional and religious affiliations would change the meaning, saying that he has rejected all traditional as well as all religious affiliations. So he eschews the Masons and Oddfellows and Knights of the Templar as well as Judaism and Catholicism and New Age woo woo stuff. 

, , , , , , , , ,

Ninety-nine people out of a hundred will not pick up on these things and will not care. Some will sense something is off if a comma is not used properly. Many can scarcely read or write, yet somehow got a high-school degree. I saw someone online complaining about the noise from the "canyons" being shot off at West Point. Maybe another victim of autocorrect... or maybe not.

I admit my comma issues are real inside-baseball stuff. 

Some will argue that these are not hard-and-fast rules, set in stone, and other clichés, and that's all right. Certainly great writers have broken these kinds of guidelines all the time, often showing powerful style. But as a great editor once said, you need to know the rules before you can break them. You have to pass the basic driving test before you can go on to race cars, drive big rigs, or jump school buses in Beetles, and what I offer is the equivalent of a parallel parking tip. 

Now, go out there and use those commas! Or not, depending!